Cholon was tired, hot and dusty; drawn curtains could not keep either the heat or the filth out of his litter. He looked at the scroll on his knees for the hundredth time, praying that he would arrive in Aprilium soon. Many of the men who had died at Thralaxas had come from this region, so the box at his feet was full of silver denarii. The first part of his task would be simple; he had sent a message ahead to the local praetor, asking him to arrange for the relatives of those dead men who had lived close to the town to assemble and await his arrival. That would take care of most of the contents and please the bearers who had had to transport him and his treasure. After that he would deposit the remaining funds at the local temple of the Goddess Roma, then take a tour through the region, hoping to find the dependants of the others on his list. Each would be given a token that, along with proof of their identity, would qualify them for their share of the bequest.
Lying back, he tried to forget the heat, allowing the jogging of his chair to send him into a dream-like state. He had been on the road for weeks now, first to the north of Rome, now heading south. It was so good, no longer being a slave. Odd that the Republic put so much store by the aura of citizenship, yet they allowed any slave freed by a Roman to automatically assume the same rights as his late master. Aulus had left him with more than enough to live in comfort, though he would have given it all back if he could, just to have that man to serve. It was not to be and once this task was over he would have to find a new way of filling his time.
Relations with Claudia had not blossomed immediately, despite her plea that they should be friends, but they had improved, especially when they shared an equal rage at Quintus’s behaviour. Claudia was as close to disowning her stepson as Cholon was to poisoning him, a fitting end to someone who was prepared to embrace his father’s murderer. Titus, sickened by what he had witnessed, had gone back to Spain as soon as he decently could, leaving behind what he termed ‘the stink of Roman politics’. Cholon half-wondered if, when this task was complete, he might not depart himself, perhaps to Biaie, which was by the sea and by all accounts a very idyllic place, more Greek than Roman. Eyes closed and curtains drawn, he knew they had arrived in Aprilium just by the babble of voices he heard through the curtain, so he put aside thoughts of a villa overlooking the sea, of the plays and poetry he would write, bringing his mind back to the present and the task in hand.
If the journey to Aprilium had been bad, this was worse. The first part of his route had been on a proper road, the Via Appia, now he was being ferried along badly maintained cart tracks; fine for a horse, passable for a cart, but worse than useless for a litter carried by four stumbling bearers. Finally, having been tossed about quite enough, he alighted from the chair and walked, looking over fields of crops and pasture to the mountains which dominated the eastern skyline, rising in ever-increasing ridges all the way to the centre of Italy.
The praetor in Aprilium had been most obliging; all the farmers on Cholon’s list were Roman citizens, liable for land tax just as they were liable for service, so the directions he had been given were fairly comprehensive. The men had been exempt during their service, but now they were dead, their relatives would have to find the means to satisfy the needs of the Roman state. The praetor had avoided saying it, but he fully expected most of the money that Cholon was distributing to end up in his municipal coffers.
He and his now-empty litter had to leave the track to make way for a cart, laden with vegetables, the mule being pulled along by a bent old crone, with dirty white hair, spiked and unkempt, her face burnt near black by years spent in the sun. Cholon took the opportunity to check his directions, though he took care not to get downwind of her. The old woman stopped at his bidding, and in the way of country folk seemed to chew upon the question.
‘My he’s getting popular,’ she wheezed, grinning and exposing her toothless gums. ‘He had a whole lot of visitors the other day. Not that he had cause to welcome them.’ She laughed then, though the sound was more of a cackle, her bony frame shaking with the effort. ‘Happen he won’t welcome you after what they did.’
‘The fellow I’m looking for is dead,’ said Cholon, ignoring the logicality of that remark. ‘He has a son of the same name, I assume?’ She did not reply, her eyes narrowing suspiciously, while her bony hand reached into a pouch on her side. Cholon felt that this old woman could close up, for country folk did not like authority and with his decorated litter and his fine clothes he might look very much like some authoritarian figure. ‘I assure you that his family will welcome me. I bear a bequest coming to them from a very famous man, a reward for his service in the legions.’
If he thought she had been amused before, it was as nothing to the state she was reduced to following that remark. Her eyes opened wide, a great gush of fetid air escaped from her open mouth, and the sound she made, a single screech, seemed to echo off the surrounding hills. Another followed and the mule, frightened, shied away, but the halter was firmly held and the animal received a mighty slap. Then she bent double, her hands clutching her sides, gasping for breath through her gums, her spiky hair flopping about as she tried to get some air and she kept repeating the words he had used each time she stopped laughing enough to draw breath:
‘Service…legions…bequest…’
Cholon looked round at his bearers to see if they could offer any enlightenment but they looked equally bemused, so there was nothing to do but wait for the crone to recover. Eventually her breathing grew more regular, her hand rubbing her aching ribs as she slowly returned to normality, until finally she looked Cholon in the eye.
‘Turds float, friend, an’ if you ever doubted it, you’ll stand convinced when you meet your man. All used to laugh at him, sayin’ that he would be a knight an’ all. Happen they was wrong.’
Cholon was still confused. ‘You’ve yet to furnish me with proper directions.’
The old woman pulled out a handful of bones and threw them at the ground. What she saw there made her quiver and she fixed him with a beady eye, which suddenly seemed full of anger and hate. ‘You can’t miss it, man. Keep on this track till you see a new villa going up, three sided and a portico, like a proper gent’s. That’s Dabo’s place.’ He stood aside to let her pass and she started laughing again, though softly this time, repeating the same litany. ‘Service…legions…bequest. I’ll wait here for you, Greek. Be sure and come to me on your way back. Me and my bones have a message for you.’
Cholon pushed past angrily, barely giving the bones spread out on the track a second’s glance. They were clearly an attempt to solicit a payment for some specious form of rustic fortune telling. He was near the farm, too late to turn back and ask, before it struck him: he was dressed as a Roman nobleman and had spoken in proper Latin. How had the old creature known he was Greek?
‘What does that look like to you?’ asked Mellio, from his vantage point on Dabo’s roof, one hand pointing into the distance.
Balbus stood upright, a red tile still in his hand, shaded his eyes and followed Mellio’s pointed finger, examining the litter as it approached, then he turned his attention to Cholon, walking alongside, holding, very obviously, a rolled scroll.
‘Tax-gatherer,’ he snapped, dropping the tile, which slid noisily down the roof and flipped over the edge onto the dust below.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Mellio, looking anxiously at his mate.
Dabo shouted up angrily from the courtyard. He had been watching the two men, wondering how he could get them to speed up the work, which had slowed considerably since Aquila’s departure. ‘Careful of those tiles, you lout. They cost money.’
Balbus ignored him and spoke softly to Mellio. ‘We don’t want to meet any tax-gatherers do we?’
‘No we don’t!’
Balbus made for the ladder. ‘Best quit for today, says I.’
‘Where’re you going?’ Dabo yelled at them as he scurried across the yard. Again they ignored him, climbing down to ground level as he strode into the courtyard to confront them. ‘I’ve been watching you two all morning, and I want to tell you I’m not satisfied.’
Balbus turned his back to him. ‘Hide the tools, Mellio. We don’t have time to get them away.’
‘What do you mean hide the tools? You get back up on that roof, or you’ll not see a denarius from me.’
‘There’s someone coming to see you, mate, someone you won’t make welcome.’
Dabo’s face paled under his broad-brimmed hat, the image of Flaccus coming to mind, but his meanness overlaid that. ‘Get back to work. Now!’
They glared at each other for several seconds, the two workers weighing the cost of non-payment against the price that might fall on them if they were caught working as builders. They were officially classed as poor, entitled to free corn, and Balbus shrugged, bent down and picked up his hammer, before making his way back to the ladder. Mellio, following him, whispered urgently.
‘What you doin’?’
Balbus turned and spoke sourly. ‘Can you imagine what that tight-fisted bastard will do if he gets an excuse not to pay us?’
Mellio looked at their employer’s retreating back and shrugged in agreement. Dabo had turned and hurried to the open side of the compound, casting his eyes down the track. It did not take him long to reach the same conclusion as the builders and his heart nearly stopped with fright.
‘Nine years,’ he moaned to himself. ‘Nine years’ land tax. They’ll ruin me.’
He turned and made for the house, calling to his wife. His sons Annius and Rufurius were in the fields, so she would have to deal with this intrusion; after all, officially, he was dead. That made him stop moving and shouting; it was one thing being at home while someone else fought your war but he had never considered that Clodius would actually get himself killed. Silently, standing in the middle of the compound created by his new, half-built villa, he cursed the man; if he was officially dead, then everything around him belonged to Annius, his heir. Dabo fought to bring some order to his thoughts, regarding a son who disliked him nearly as much as he disliked Annius. If the boy ever found out about this he would probably boot him off the property. He could lose everything. Time to come clean. What he had done was illegal, but it was a regular if not a common occurrence, one to which the magistrates could turn a blind eye. As for the taxes, he could slip them a bribe that would be a lot less than he owed, with a grovelling apology for missing the census.
‘There’s no future in being dead,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Time for Dabo to return from Hades to the land of the living.’
Then he remembered he had been calling for his fat and lazy wife and she had yet to respond, so he stormed into the finished part of the house, glad to have someone on whom to take out his anger.
An odd feeling had come over Cholon as he approached the buildings; up till now the farms he had visited had been run-down, with untidy fields, places where he felt the money he offered would be insufficient compensation for the loss of the man needed to work the land. This was different; here was obvious prosperity, and a look around the place, fields well tilled and a full and thriving pigsty, revealed proper husbandry. The house itself was a mess, but that was because it was, as yet, unfinished. It required little imagination to see it as it would be, with a tiled courtyard, facing north, away from the heat of the sun. Did these people really qualify for a bequest from Aulus? The face that greeted him was full of the rural suspicion he had come to expect, a man of perhaps forty years dressed in a long smock, which reached below his knees, with a large straw hat on his head. He could not be the owner, since he looked nothing like the sort of person who would construct a place such as this. Indeed he smelt like a farm labourer who had just completed his most unpleasant task of the day.
Dabo, for his part, was wondering who he was about to greet, there being nothing official about his visitor’s accoutrements — no rods of office — nor the livery of his plainly clad, dust-covered attendants. His nose crinkled as he caught a whiff of the scented water that the man wore, his eyes taking in the braided band that Cholon wore around his head, something in which no true-born Roman would be seen dead, and the voice, with his light pitch, to a ruffian like Dabo, sounded as though it belonged to a girl!
‘I am in search of the relatives of Piscius Dabo.’
Dabo said nothing, trying to make sense of the words. Cholon mistook the look on his screwed-up face as a sign of bucolic stupidity, so he repeated the name slowly, and still lacking an answer, leant forward slightly and proceeded to spell it out letter by letter.
‘I heard you the first time,’ snapped Dabo, stung by the implication that he was an idiot.
His visitor was slightly taken aback, left with a wholly inappropriate and patronising look on his face. Dabo looked beyond Cholon to the four bearers, waiting for instructions to lower their chair.
‘Who’s asking?’
The Greek recovered his dignity, squared his shoulders and spoke sharply. ‘You will first tell me, have I come to the right farm?’
Dabo nodded. ‘You have, but I’ll say no more until you tell me why you’re here and who you are.’
‘Please be so good as to fetch the owner. My business is with him.’
‘I am the owner.’
Cholon blinked, then looked around the area, as though what had been said could not be true. The man was old enough to be a dead legionary’s father, but the century scroll had said that the deceased was the head of the household. His eye caught the two builders, standing idle on the roof, listening to the conversation below, deep suspicion on their faces, so he tried to inject a friendly note into his voice.
‘Then it is you I have come to see.’
Dabo declined to respond; if anything his frown deepened and his voice was now positively hostile. ‘About what?’
Cholon was tempted to rebuke him, even tempted to turn on his heel and forget this prosperous fellow who dressed like a tramp. He did not need the money by the look of the surroundings and his manner was offensive, but it was not his place to interpret the general’s instructions. So he took a deep breath and launched into the familiar litany, one repeated so many times in the last few weeks. But he refused to look this fellow in the eye, instead casting his gaze over his shoulder, to where Mellio and Balbus were eavesdropping.
‘First I must express my regrets at the loss of the head of the household. Be assured that Piscius Dabo did his duty by the Republic and, at Thralaxas, died as honourable a death as any man can hope for. Already in Rome the tale is the stuff of legends. Before the final assault, the general in command, Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus, realising that few, if any, of the men he led would survive, bade me carry his wishes to his executors. These were that all the men who died with him should be remembered in his will and their relatives should not suffer by their death. I am here to fulfil that wish.’
‘What does that mean spoken plain?’
‘It means,’ snapped Cholon, ‘that Dabo’s heirs are to benefit from the death in battle of Piscius Dabo. Are you his next of kin?’ Dabo threw back his head and laughed, a reaction which annoyed Cholon even more. After all, the dead deserved respect, so he shouted at the man. ‘Are you related to the legionary, Piscius Dabo?’
Dabo grinned at him, tempted to tell him of his fears of the tax-gatherer. He was firstly relieved because those had evaporated and the second question had only served to increase his humour. ‘I’m related to Piscius Dabo, all right. None closer, friend. You could say we was twins.’
‘I’m wondering if we can stand by and let this pass,’ said Mellio who, like his workmate, had heard every word of the exchange. Both men knew of the bargain struck between Dabo and Clodius, which was common enough knowledge locally.
‘By rights any money should go to Aquila,’ replied Balbus.
He was still musing, wondering if he should intervene, while the well-dressed visitor fetched a scroll from the litter, scanning it, talking all the while, explaining the procedure for the collection of the money. ‘A twin you say? I cannot find any evidence of a twin on the census. Only a son, Annius.’
Dabo spoke quickly and there was a new note of respect, triggered by greed, in his voice. ‘The twin was a joke, sir. Annius is Piscius Dabo’s eldest. He’s out in the fields, working.’
‘Then it is to him that I must speak.’
Dabo was stumped; if he asked Annius for help the boy would do the opposite just to spite him, but he could hardly admit to being hastari legionary Dabo, alive and well. Not only would that pose some danger, but he could kiss goodbye to any coin that was going. At least the task of fetching Annius would give him time to think, so he touched the brim of his straw hat and headed off towards the ribbons of fields that made up his farm.
‘Is it any of our business?’ asked Mellio.
Balbus nodded, his eyes fixed on Dabo’s retreating back. ‘It is that. So if we’re planning to say anything, we best be quick.’
Cholon was not shocked; being Greek he was more inclined to praise Dabo for his good sense rather than take a stiff-necked Roman attitude and berate him. Neither would he report him, it being none of his affair. The only question to be answered was how to get Aulus’s bequest to this boy called Aquila, for he certainly could not countenance going all the way to Sicily to deliver it. The builders were back on the roof, working away, when Dabo came scurrying back into the courtyard with a young boy of about ten, surely too young to be the Annius Dabo listed in the census two years previously, a census that the parent had managed to avoid.
‘Here you are, sir,’ cried the father. ‘This is the younger Dabo.’
‘Is it indeed?’
Dabo, fooled by his visitor’s smile, grinned and came close, wafting the odour of the pigsty in Cholon’s direction. ‘Small for his age, ain’t he, but he’s a good lad.’
‘I’m sure he is.’ Cholon looked at the boy, who immediately avoided his eyes. ‘What’s your name, lad?’
Dabo reacted with exaggerated surprise. ‘Why, Annius!’
‘Let him answer.’ Cholon turned to the boy, pointing at Dabo. ‘Who is this?’
Rufurius, clearly nervous, replied without thinking. ‘My father, sir.’
‘Your father?’
‘What he means is…’
‘It’s perfectly plain what he means. Now boy, what is your father’s name?’
Rufurius was utterly confused, his head turning between Dabo and Cholon, as the Greek favoured him with a look that encouraged him to speak. It was too much for the boy to make up a name on the spur of the moment, even though his father, with a screwed up look on his face, was willing him to do so.
‘Piscius Dabo.’
The paternal hand took him hard round the ear and Rufurius spun away with a painful cry. ‘Idiot!’
Dabo made to go after the boy, but Cholon placed himself between them and put his hand on Dabo’s stinking smock. It was not physical strength that stopped the farmer, more that he had no idea who this man was and it would never do to go belting someone important. Besides, the four litter bearers had started to move towards him, though their master waved his other hand to tell them to remain still.
‘The boy has saved you a flogging, if not something worse. You would do well to remember that.’
Dabo just growled, glaring past Cholon at the cowering Rufurius. ‘I wish I’d exposed you, you little turd, and I curse the day that Clodius found Aquila.’
‘Found?’ asked Cholon. He removed the restraining hand and rubbed his fingertips together, in a vain attempt to rid them of Dabo’s smell.
‘Not that he would’ve found the little bastard, if I hadn’t have filled him full of drink. If anybody deserves a reward, it’s me.’
‘It is not a reward.’
‘It’s money ain’t it?’ Cholon nodded, moving backwards to avoid the spittle that Dabo, in his ire, was spraying around. ‘Same difference. I looked after the boy and his mother for years, an’ took him into my own home when she died. I’m not one to spit on a friend, even if the boy wasn’t his own flesh and blood. Not many can claim to be a foundling twice.’
Cholon did not want to hear any of this; what he wanted was information about this Aquila, then he could leave this farmyard, as well as this stinking peasant. ‘You are not making sense. What is all this about exposure and foundling children?’
‘The boy, Aquila. He was found by Clodius after a night’s drinking, lying a couple of leagues off the road in them woods you can just see from my roof. Only the Gods know where he came from, lazy little sod with grand ideas. Like his father: never done a day’s work in his life.’
Cholon had a moment’s thought, of that night many years before, the Feast of Lupercalia, when he and Aulus had placed a small bundle in some woods far from a main highway, but he dismissed it. Exposure was commonplace and such coincidences were the stuff of plays and comedies, not of real life.
‘My sole concern is that the boy should receive the money due to him. Do you think he will return here?’
‘Never!’ said Rufurius. His father glared at him, but he did not disagree and Cholon turned round to face the boy as he continued. ‘He has relations in Rome, a baker called Demetrius.’
‘Not relations, the boy was never adopted proper,’ growled Dabo. Then his face took on a crafty look. ‘There are Clodius Terentius’s blood children, surely any money should go to them. There’s a sister on the other side of Aprilium.’
‘Did they live with their father?’ Dabo shook his head. ‘Then they do not qualify. The bequest was for dependants. Has this Aquila reached manhood?’
‘No.’
‘Which is?’
Dabo looked at his younger son, as if to confirm, by the difference in their ages, the truth of his reply. ‘Thirteen summers, I suppose.’
‘Then he is the sole dependant and the money is his. I shall leave instructions at the Temple of the Goddess Roma in Aprilium. Should he return here, you must direct him to that place.’
‘And if he don’t come back?’ asked Dabo.
‘I may seek to find this Demetrius Terentius in Rome. More than that I cannot do.’
She was waiting for them in the same place, crouched by the side of the track, staring at the bones laid out before her and since her cart blocked the way, Cholon’s bearers were forced to stop. He walked towards her to see that her finger was stuck in the red earth, where she had drawn the outline of a beaked eagle, wings outstretched as if in flight. The old woman did not look up when Cholon coughed politely and he finally touched her shoulder when she failed to respond. The skinny frame fell to the side, the head falling backwards, and Cholon could see clearly that the black eyes held no life. He looked at the bones, lying in the dust where they had been cast, and the drawn eagle, wondering what message, if any, they contained.